


Together Has Passed

by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post 5x09, Seriously guys, moments between moments, reaction fic to The Slap, this is a bowl of angst and I am living for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:02:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15249954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky/pseuds/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky
Summary: The interesting thing about life is that it goes on, even when it stops for you. Clarke and Bellamy didn’t realize the biggest separation they’d face wouldn’t be the past six years. It’d be the past two weeks.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~5x09 Reaction fic / the thoughts leading up to the final explosion. Moments in between moments, ft. hits like “Desperate Radio Calls,” “How Did the Conversation Go to Get Clarke on Bellamy’s Bed,” and “The Slap Hear ‘Round the World.”





	Together Has Passed

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be working on other things, but this episode made me feel things and while I live for angst, I also need to write out my emotions. I hope you enjoy my anguish: here are a collection of scenes that I’m calling ‘moments within moments,’ so that they aren’t in the show, but are in the down time we don’t get to see.
> 
> Much love!

TOGETHER HAS PASSED

_By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

 

 

It was an early spring evening when Clarke first felt the sickening pang of homesickness that she didn’t understand. She never really had a home – she wouldn’t consider the Ark one as it was the place of her father’s execution and her own confinement, and their time on earth before Praimfaya was riddled with so much violence that she never had a chance to catch her breath. Except as she sits on the hood of the Rover, staring at the sky as she always did when Madi was getting ready for bed, she feels an incurable bout of homesickness that won’t go away.

 

Clutching the radio in her hands, Clarke presses the button without realizing it, the gentle beep causing a longing in her chest that aches and echoes like the depths of a cave. “Bellamy?” Clarke asks, her voice smaller than she’s ever heard it. The longing drips off the one word and she realizes not for the first time that to love someone afar has hurt her more than any Grounder war. Licking her lips, she tries again. “Bellamy, it’s Clarke. I mean, you know that. It’s not like you’ve forgotten.”

 

She hesitates. “Have you? …forgotten?” She asks, choking over the words.

 

She tries to follow it up with a joke, but she finds her throat run dry. The homesickness barrels into her and she wonders if it’s possible to be homesick for a person. “I hope you haven’t.” She admits softly, clutching the radio. The stars twinkle above her and she tries to find the Ark, but it’s lost in a smattering of the sky. “It’s been two years. Two years since Praimfaya. Technically eight hundred and seventy-two days. But who’s counting, right?” She chuckles hollowly at her bad joke. “If you can hear me, if it’s possible for you to hear me and not respond, I need to ask you something.”

 

Her lower lip trembles and she feels guilty even considering asking. “I-If you can hear me, can you find a way to respond?” The words pour out of her before she can stop herself. But once she says it, she can’t stop. “Please?” She whimpers, wiping under her nose. “Please, can you find a way to respond? I-I really need you to r-respond. I-I really need to hear your voice. I don’t think I can do this by myself. I really n-need to hear your voice.”

 

Letting go of the radio button, Clarke bows her head. Madi doesn’t seem to be anywhere near so she curls her legs up to her chin and hugs them there. Her hands are shaking and her entire body trembles from her attempting to stifle her cries. She presses the button. “P-Please, Bellamy. Please.”

 

She lets go of the button.

 

Whipping her head up, Clarke realizes what she just said. “Oh my god,” she breathes and the panic is enough to break her out of her spiral.

 

She knows Bellamy. If somehow he is receiving her messages and can’t respond, he’s probably working himself into a panic on his own. Quickly pressing the radio, Clarke says, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry anyone.” She hastily scrubs under her eyes as if they’re there and can see her before continuing, “I just wish I knew whether you made it. If any of you are alive. I wish I knew _something_.” She bows her head. “It’s hard to have hope when all you hear is radio silence.

 

“But I do. Hope. We’ll be together soon.” Clarke sucks in a breath. “Together.”

 

Letting go of the radio button one final time, Clarke is greeted to nothing but radio silence. She listens to the crackling that she’s grown accustomed to – a noise she’s grown to despise. Static grates against her ears while she waits. Clarke knows it’s foolish, but there’s a knot in her stomach that tells her to wait a bit longer. Just a bit longer. They’ll radio soon.

 

The number of lies she tells herself begin to rival the stars in the sky.

 

***

 

It’s been two and a half years.

 

Bellamy tells himself it’s much easier to be on the Ark where they aren’t in a constant state of terror for their lives, but for some reason it’s become nothing more than a steel prison. Twice a day Bellamy does some laps in order to keep himself moving and give himself something to do, but it never seems to be enough.

 

From the moment he stepped onto the Ground, Bellamy had something to do. Someone to save. Something to plan. Now everything?

 

It’s gone.

 

He tries to remember Clarke in the beginning. Sometimes he thinks he doesn’t remember it correctly because there’s no way someone could look like that. The way the sunlight caught her hair startled him, but no more so than the way she yelled at him before he even know there was a Clarke Griffin that existed. It’s hard for him to remember hating her, but _oh_ how he hated her.

 

Then, she dug under his skin. He watched her end a life that he couldn’t, even out of mercy. He watched her throw herself into wars with hopes from peace, only to be let down by the human race again and again. On the Ground, Bellamy couldn’t wait for the war to be over. He told himself too many times that once the war was over, everyone would have a chance to be happy.

 

 _They_ would have a chance to be happy.

 

But that’s the thing about war, isn’t it? It takes and takes, leaving the everyone who survived to deal with what it means.

 

“Mind if I join?” Someone asks, jogging up to him until they reach his side. Raven matches his stride even with her injured leg.

 

Bellamy doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t say no either. Instead he allows the two of them to walk in silence around the Ark – the place he called home for the majority of his life. It wasn’t home, though. Not really. He’s learned that now.

 

When he doesn’t make any move to start the conversation, Raven starts, “You need to be nicer to Echo.” Bellamy resists the urge to scowl at the request. “It’s been two and a half years. I get being angry in the beginning, but it’s time to let it go.”

 

“She’s still breathin’, isn’t she? She tried to murder my sister, Raven. She tried to murder Clarke. She’s betrayed us again and again. Why should I give her anything other than what she deserves?” He grumbles.

 

“She doesn’t have a clan, anymore. Roan banished her before he died. She lost her king. She lost her clan. She lost everything.” Raven says softly. “I know that she fought against us, but she was doing it to defend her people. And we’ve done things to defend our people. Maybe it’s time to… put that behind us and move on.”

 

“Move on?” Bellamy repeats, spitting the word like an insult.

 

He doesn’t mean to snap at Raven, he really doesn’t. But moving on seems… final. He didn’t realize until this moment that he doesn’t want to move on. Moving on would mean that it really happened.

 

He left her behind.

 

He remembers Mt. Weather. When he realized the only way to save their people was to eradicate an entire population. The moment guns were pointed Octavia’s head, he knew he would sacrifice and entire society to save his sister, just as Clarke would sacrifice an entire society to save her people. _“Together.”_ The whispers of the last words tug at him and he winces when he realizes a tear has rolled down his cheek. He wipes it away as quickly as possible, but he knows Raven’s caught it.

 

“I miss her too, Bellamy, but she wouldn’t have wanted this.” Raven says, placing a hand on his arm. “You have to know that, deep down, she never would’ve wanted you to torture yourself over this. You have to trust Clarke knew what she was doing and did it to save us. You have to be the person she thought you were.”

 

“I don’t know how, Raven.” Bellamy allows himself a bit of honesty that he rarely vocalizes, not even to himself. “I don’t know how to be that person when she isn’t here. She…” His words catch and he has to stop. “She always made me think I could be better. Than I was. Maybe I’m not that person. Maybe it was someone I tried to be.”

 

Raven’s eyes soften and she pulls him into an embrace. He resists at first, but gives up when it’s clear Raven won’t. “We know who you are, Bellamy.” She insists, every word carrying _weight_. “And Clarke may have been the one to see it first, but we all see it too. And she’s here.” Raven pulls apart and places a hand over his chest. “She’s here.”

 

Bellamy closes his eyes and wishes it were enough.

 

***

 

Clarke remembers the first time she saw him again. The first time they touched.

 

It plays in her head over and over, but instead of the dream she had wished it be, it’s slowly morphed into a nightmare.

 

She remembers not believing he was here. When she saw Bellamy step out of the Rover, Clarke was convinced she was hallucinating. It wouldn’t have been the first time. There were days wen she genuinely thought he was next to her, coming for her after all these years. That she wouldn’t have to be on the Ground alone anymore.

 

Except he grabbed her the moment he was close enough, pulling her into his chest like he couldn’t believe it either.

 

In that moment, everything melted away.

 

Clarke wishes she could go back to that sometimes. It’s selfish and silly, but when he wrapped his arms around her, she felt safe for the first time in six years. Sometimes she can still feel the ghosts of his embrace on her arms. When Madi’s fallen asleep and she’s alone, staring at a tatter tent and dreaming of the stars in the valley, the hair on her skin stands up and prickles.

 

How does someone so close seem so far away?

 

Clarke watches from afar as Bellamy and Echo embrace and there’s a flash of something she’s never experienced before. Something white hot jolts through her stomach and she finds herself a little sick, unable to stand the sight.

 

Six years is a long time.

 

Instead, she runs her hands down Madi’s back and holds onto the idea that they’re on their way to the valley. Clarke always thought she’d bring Bellamy to the valley. Everyone to the valley. She kept the village clean, the houses in shape, awaiting their arrival. She filled it with color and gentle things, to remind everyone that there’s more to life than war. There’s more to life than whose blood will spill first. That there can be joy and happiness in small things. When they are together.

 

_Together._

 

Clarke clenches her fists.

 

“Are you okay?” Madi asks and Clarke realizes she’s tensed up.

 

“I’m fine,” Clarke manages, but knows Madi can see. She sees too much and too little all at once, unable to see past the story of the _Girl Who Lived Under the Floor_ , but focused on the separation before her.

 

“Maybe you should talk to him.” Madi offers carefully. “In all your stories you guys did everything together, right? Maybe he’s waiting for you to talk to him.”

 

Clarke watches as Bellamy leans into kiss Echo and tells herself it doesn’t hurt. The lies stack up like Jenga pieces, waiting to tumble to the Ground. “Yeah maybe,” she says distantly.

 

But maybe that’s not the problem. In the stories they did everything together. Maybe they’re just that at this point.

 

Stories.

 

***

 

For someone whose vowed to use his head in all situations, Bellamy knows he’s losing it a bit. Everything’s crumbling around him and he doesn’t know how to stop it. He tries to think back at how he kept it together when he was on the Ground and then stills.

 

Clarke.

 

He never had to carry the weight alone. She stood next to him, killing when he couldn’t, making decisions he couldn’t, and bearing the weight of the consequences when he couldn’t. Except now she’s on the other side and he doesn’t know how to function when Clarke Griffin is no longer next to him, but opposing him.

 

She’s like Praimfaya herself, a force of nature, when unleashed, can destroy the world.

 

Now?

 

Now she wants to kill his sister.

 

Bellamy’s leg bounces and he can do nothing to stop it. He thinks about how on the Ark, he dreamed of her. She haunted his sleep, placing her hand on his cheek. In his darkest moments, he sometimes wished he could stay asleep and have her with him for a second longer. Except when he woke up, that’s all he had: memories of her next to him that never existed. Honestly, he doesn’t know what’s worse.

 

She enters his tent without him having to say anything, her shoulders slumped in what he’s recognized over the years as exhaustion. He gestures her to go to his bed in the middle of the room and she doesn’t even argue with him, which he knows is a bad sign. Collapsing onto the bed, Clarke hangs her head and puts it in her hands, taking a few seconds to breathe. He understands that need.

 

He remains far away.

 

It’s more comfortable this way. He never expected needing _space_ from Clarke, but like a force of nature, her reappearance is overwhelming and confusing. Feelings he thought he locked up a long time ago are resurfacing, but he has no time to try and figure out what they mean. Stay alive, figure it out later.

 

He sighs. Sounds awfully familiar.

 

He knows she wants to say something, but can’t bring herself to. She keeps looking up at him, opening her mouth, and shutting it again. Bellamy wants to close the gap between them and widen it at the same time, every part of him screaming something contradictory.

 

When Clarke does speak, it’s something he doesn’t expect. “It makes me sad that your first experience with the valley is with nothing but violence.” She says softly, peering up at him.

 

The hardness from their past few days has melted and been replaced with something dazzling. Clarke, at her core, is quiet and gentle, forged by flames into something deadly. Bellamy recalls the last time he saw her with her guard down in A.L.I.E’s bunker, pleading with him to let her say goodbye.

 

Why did she have to be right? What did she always have to be right?

 

“Yeah?” He asks because he isn’t sure what to say but secretly doesn’t want this conversation to end. He _wants_ to hear about the valley, he _wants_ to hear about her time alone, but the space is dropping their conversations and he’s afraid to pick them up.

 

Clarke’s lips turn up a bit. “It’s what I thought the earth would be when we got down here. Quiet… green.” She laughs to herself. “There’s even a cabin for you. I knew that once we opened the bunker, that we’d have to figure out a system, or that the elderly and sick would get first dibs, but I figured in the meantime we could have our own space.”

 

Bellamy resists the urge to go over and sit next to her. “What’s mine like?”

 

Clarke’s gaze grows distant, like she’s in the valley now. He desperately wishes to go with her, but he’s unsure that’ll ever be a possibility. “There’s a window to the east, because I know you mentioned once you like to watch the sun come up after a lifetime on the Ark. It’s the only one that has it. If you open the window, you can hear the stream close by and Bellamy, it’s like music. There’s a fruit tree outside it that Madi and I planted our first year. It smells like citrus, especially when it rains.”

 

Bellamy is at a loss for words. He can’t see it, but he can _feel_ it. “It sounds perfect.” He mutters low.

 

“It would’ve been.” Clarke says absently. “We would’ve all been together.”

 

Bellamy hears the yearning in her voice and it nearly cracks him in two. He watches as she tenses, as if actual walls are building around her as she tries to remain stoic. “We’ll still be together, Clarke. Once this is over, we’ll be together.”

 

Clarke smiles, but it’s empty and sad. “Yeah, together.”

 

The silence drips into the tent, as the blood of the lives lost mounts.

 

***

 

 _“Together_.”

 

Clarke plays the words over and over in her head. The shackles strain on her wrists, rubbing them raw. She plays Bellamy’s words over and over in her head like an anthem, holding her to this world. She only got one small moment with him, but it made the prospect of what’s to come less daunting.

 

_Together, together, together._

 

Clarke can’t help but be surprised at how Bellamy is different, and yet how he’s the same. He holds himself more confidently, pauses before acting, and thinks his way through problems. And he still fiercely protects those he cares about.

 

Dying would be fine, after everything. Clarke’s life had been the topic of so many conversations over the years, she barely payed attention to it anymore. Dying at the hand of Blodreina doesn’t surprise her. From the moment she stepped foot in the bunker, she had a feeling this would be her tomb.

 

She had six years above ground when they had none, and now they are calling for retribution.

 

Perhaps she’ll get that reunion after all. Perhaps they will make it to the valley. Perhaps she and Bellamy will be together.

 

 _Together_.

 

To dream is such a risky game.

 

***

 

_The traitor, who you love._

 

Bellamy tries to push Octavia’s words out of his head, but they are on repeat, playing over and over as he stalks down the hall. He doesn’t know which he prefers.

 

Octavia’s taunts or Clarke’s shrieking.

 

The bunker walls are tight, but he knows she’s still screaming and yanking against the chains. He couldn’t even look at her at the end as she begged him to keep his promise. He wanted to tell her he was doing it for the sake the valley, the sake of Madi.

 

For her.

 

Instead, he walked away, listening to her screams claw on the bunker walls.

 

He replays every moment of their conversation in her head, unable to even fathom what happened. He tried every tactic – everything he could think of to get Clarke to see it his way. He even tried pleading for his family.

 

Bellamy caught the way she faltered. He caught the way tears welled in her eyes when he spoke of his family. Clarke had been so hard to read since they returned and he found out everything he didn’t know in that one moment. It was terrible to watch and he’s certain he’d watch it again and again.

 

As long as people knew he cared about her, she would still continue to be the scapegoat. Octavia made it clear her mercy extended for Bellamy, but Clarke’s nothing was nothing but a nuisance. Something she could stomp out. Bellamy doesn’t remember the day he decided Clarke’s life was on the very short list of those he would do anything for, but he knew he would do what he had to keep her alive. Even if it meant poisoning his sister.

 

If it meant betraying Clarke herself.

 

After this is over, Octavia will see peace can work in the valley. Maybe they’d even get that house Clarke told him about. Maybe they’d get peace. Bellamy would keep his end of the bargain. They’d make their way to the valley.

 

Together.

 

***

 

She can still feel the sting of the handcuffs on her wrists, but Clarke barely gives it a second thought. Because all she feels right now is the tingling of her hand as Bellamy stumbles back.

 

It isn’t a rage that she’s ever experienced.

 

She’s felt explosive rage, broken rage, the feelings overwhelming her to the point where she thought she might collapse upon herself like the stars they so often witnessed in the sky. Except this? This was different.

 

It was a feeling that numbed Clarke to her core. She sees Madi’s still body out of the corner of her eyes and everything she thought she knew about Bellamy crumbles before her. Clarke barely registers the guns surrounding them. Instead, she’s focused

 

Focused on _him_.

 

His eyes water with the force of the slap, whipping in her direction as he straightens himself. Clarke can see him vibrating with emotion underneath the contact but Clarke steels herself against it.

 

She doesn’t say anything.

 

She _can’t_ say anything.

 

Because it’s partly her fault. She _believed_ him. She believed him when he said he’d protect Madi. She believed him when he said they’d be together in the valley.

 

But together didn’t mean what it used to. Six years is a long time to solidify a family, and an easy time to forget one. Clarke used to wake up in a panic, thinking they’ve forgotten her. She never realized the real nightmare would be being forgotten by choice.

 

They don’t break the eye contact. There are so many things she wants to say, but there don’t seem to be the words.

 

 _Together_.

 

Like the stars that litter the sky, nothing but a lie she tells herself.

 

***

 

When he’s thrown into his cell, he knows she’s gone. Even if they meet again, she’s gone.

 

But she’s alive.

 

Maybe that’s enough.

 

Perhaps they couldn’t be together, but it was asking too much of this world. Perhaps together has passed for them. Maybe a life is all it was willing to offer.

 

Bellamy thinks of his fate in the pit.

 

Maybe it this world demands sacrifice for it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: CAN YOU TELL I’M FEELING SUPER ANGSTY, PLEASE SEND HELP IMMEDIATELY I HOPE YOU ALL ARE DOING BETTER THAN I.


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